


I Never Find Out 'Til I'm Head Over Heels

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, High School, M/M, Misunderstandings, School Dances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 07:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10849059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Wherein Mike believes he’s being obvious, Will doesn’t know what he believes, and the pair of them could use a lesson or two in effective communication. Somehow all of this has both nothing and everything to do with five years' worth of school dances.(This piece was written for the Stranger Things Big Bang)





	I Never Find Out 'Til I'm Head Over Heels

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to @themikewheelers on tumblr for organizing the Big Bang! It was a lovely experience. :')
> 
> Super-special thanks to @nonbinarycharliedalton who voluntarily served double-duty as my beta reader and my artist! What kind of angel?! Check out the awesome art and AMAZING playlist [here](http://nonbinarycharliedalton.tumblr.com/post/160433063779/something-happens-and-im-head-over-heels-i-never)!
> 
> Enjoy, and please feel free to drop me a comment here or on [tumblr](http://gaywillbyers.tumblr.com) if you enjoy it!
> 
> Warning: There is a fairly brief and mildly descriptive scene in which Will has a panic attack on one occasion. I would say it's not much to worry about in the way of being triggering, but take care of yourselves, please.
> 
> Title quite obviously yanked from Tears for Fears’ _Head Over Heels_ because I'm cheesy like that.

The first time Mike asks Will to go to a school dance with him, they’re 13 and Will is too nervous to put a name to the blossoming warmth that’s grown roots through the cage of his ribs when he’s around Mike, but he knows it means something that’s getting too big to ignore.

A gentle breeze teases at their hair and smells floral, earthy with the scent of newly-bloomed redbud flowers crushed by children’s sneakers on the cracked asphalt. Mike and Will sit on a tire swing on the old elementary school playground, their limbs hanging off, knocking awkwardly together in a way that makes Will acutely aware of the fact that they’re both growing faster than their old childhood haunts can keep up. As the sun sets behind the trees on the horizon, it glows, a halo of wildfire, against the black curtain of Mike’s hair, reflecting the early spring scene in his dark eyes with a shocking clarity.

Will is lamenting the fact that the whole school has spent the last week fluttering excitedly over the upcoming spring fling. The constant talk around the hallways is _who’s going with whom_ and _I wonder if Rebecca Sawyer and Tim Lawson will break up before the dance_. Not that Will really has anything against school dances, honestly, it’s just that everyone seems to have forgotten about the science fair that’s right around the corner, and that is far more exciting to him than whether so-and-so and whatshisface are going to slow dance together on Friday night.

“Besides,” Will says with a shrug and a shy sort of smile, “I think those things may only be worth going to if you have a date.”

Maybe the words come out more wistful than Will intends them to. Maybe he can’t quite keep the longing out of his voice when he’s around Mike anymore. Maybe he just looks particularly forlorn this evening, though he’s sure his face is well-schooled into a look of friendly neutrality, as he’s so painstakingly taught himself to do when he’s in close proximity to Mike.

Whatever it is, something gives Mike pause for a second too long, face going a bit thoughtful before his lips pull up into a soft smile.

“We could always go together,” Mike suggests, sounding matter-of-fact, eyes searching Will’s face for some kind of reaction.

A laugh bubbles up from Will’s throat, a halted, staccato note that sounds out of place in the otherwise quiet evening air. It’s a completely involuntary reaction - just as involuntary as the way his heart picks up pace and his breath stutters somewhere between his lungs and his lips, choking on the _yes_ that so desperately wants to make its way out. But Mike must be joking. He _has_ be joking, even if the smile on his face doesn’t look much like the mischievous sort of smile that Will knows all too well.

“I can only imagine Troy’s face if _that_ happened,” Will says with a nervous laugh when he can gather his thoughts enough to make his mouth start working again, “But I think I’d rather just stay over at your place and watch _Return of the Jedi_ again.”

And it’s true, Will’s never really been one for crowds. Couple that with the fact that he’s been spending the last year of his life choking back panic attacks in public places, he’s not sure that shuffling awkwardly around a darkened middle school gymnasium for an evening is really the place that he wants to be.

Mike is still smiling. The graying sunlight plays over the slant of his cheekbones where the roundness of youth is being chiseled away, becoming more angular, more elegant and deliberate and something that Will can embarrassingly only define as _beautiful_.

Will blushes and looks away, waits for the “I was only joking,” to come out. Instead, all Mike says is, “okay,” and starts planning out the night that they’ll have in place of the dance (movies and video games and action figure roleplaying that they’re maybe a little bit too old for these days, but who’s honestly keeping track?).

Will tries not to read too much into it, the way Mike has suggested they go to the dance together. It’s nothing. It’s just Mike being Mike, and the only problem with that is that Will is so desperately in awe of him despite himself.

When the sun has set and Mike suggests they start heading toward home, Will’s hand brushes Mike’s as they disentangle themselves from between the rusted chains of the battered tire swing. If Mike curls his fingers around Will’s and brushes his thumb over his knuckles for just a moment before stumbling off the side of the swing, Will knows that it’s just because it’s nighttime and hard to see on the poorly lit playground. He silently tells his heart to quiet down in his chest, and is grateful to the dark for masking the way his face has gone pink across the tops of his cheeks.

Mike stands too close to him on the walk home and Will reminds himself that Mike knows about the panic attacks and the flashbacks, and he’s just a good friend who is always looking out for Will. But, _god_ , how it hurts to talk himself out of wishing it were more.

 

* * *

 

From there it becomes a running joke for Mike - asking Will to school dances at every opportunity he has. Or maybe _joke_ is the wrong word, Will reasons. _Tradition_ , perhaps, would better suit it. Mike doesn’t do it as a joke. Mike does it because he’s _Mike_ , and Mike just worries that Will is lonely or feels left out, in part because Will’s answer is always the same whenever anyone asks him if he’s going to any upcoming school dance (“no, I don’t think so,” said with a small, earnest smile). Mike just wants Will to feel included, and it’s not his fault that Will’s terribly silly heart clings to the traitorous idea that maybe Mike just really wants to dance with him.

Will tries not to think too much about it. After all, he doesn’t measure his life in school dances. There are so many more important things that happen around him over the years. Like Eleven being adopted by Chief Hopper, or Lucas being accepted into space camp in Florida the summer before high school, or Will’s mom being promoted to assistant manager at the grocery store, and Jonathan’s photos being published in a national nature magazine.

There are also things that (Will tells himself) are less important happening around him. Like the coincidental way that Mike always chooses to sit next to Will at the lunch table, or Mike walking him home from the movies when they all go together as a group or, much later, when Mike gets his license before Will does and he offers to drive Will everywhere - from a dentist appointment to a chess match to Max’s 16th birthday party.

Life in general happens around him - important moments and moments of pure insignificance, and lots of little things squeezed somewhere in between. But somehow Mike suggesting that they go to a school dance together becomes a running constant between the two of them.

Like at the end of their eighth grade year, when Mike casually suggests, “maybe we should go to the end-of-year formal together,” and Will swallows nervously around the lump in his throat and says, “or we could go to the comic shop and get the new Uncanny X-Men. I have enough saved up to buy it this weekend.” And Mike smiles and says, “sure, Will, that sounds nice.”

Despite the fact that Lucas and Dustin end up joining them that night, all of them huddled in Mike’s basement, crowded into a space that's slowly but surely feeling smaller and smaller to them as the years pass by, Mike still has a weird way of making it feel like he and Will are the only ones in the room. It’s something in the way he stands behind Will as they read comics together, hair brushing against the shell of Will’s ear and making Will lose focus and forget to turn the page for just a second too long. Will is almost thankful when Mrs. Wheeler comes downstairs and announces that it’s bedtime for all of them.

He curls up in his sleeping bag, pressed between Lucas on one side and Mike on the other, Mike’s arm flopped unceremoniously over Will’s chest like some vigilant instinct to protect Will even in his sleep. Will measures his breathing to the pulse he can feel through the thin skin of Mike’s wrist, and reminds himself that wishing for something, no matter how hard he wishes for it, doesn’t mean it will come true.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks before their ninth grade homecoming dance, Will is riding on the back of Mike’s bike, holding on tightly to Mike's shoulders as he pedals them away from the school. It's something Will has been doing a lot lately - riding with Mike even though he managed to fix the flat tire on his own bike a few days ago. Mike knows the bike is fixed; he doesn't seem to mind.

As they coast down the final hill toward Will’s house, Mike turns his head just slightly and asks, “do you want to go to homecoming together?”, in all of his casual effortlessness.

Will pretends not to hear him over the wind that’s dancing through his ears in the setting October sun. He feigns an inability to hear and holds his breath all the way home, because being around Mike makes Will’s voice get caught in his throat, tangled around words that feel too big and taste too sweet at the back of his tongue, choked up with questions that are too difficult to ask. Will has kind of hoped Mike would leave that whole thing back in middle school, when it was easier to pretend he didn’t know why Mike’s smile makes his knees feel weak. So instead he grips tighter onto Mike’s shoulders and keeps his mouth shut, hoping Mike won’t repeat the question when they stop.

Mike doesn’t repeat himself, doesn't even ask again at any point in the next two weeks. He does ask Will about maybe going to see a movie instead, though, and they end up seeing _The Re-Animator_ in a mostly empty theater the same night as the dance. Mike buys Will a box of Sour Patch Kids and their candy-sticky fingers overlap on the armrest between their seats. Neither of them moves away and Will spends more time thinking about the way Mike’s fingers are resting over top of his own than the movie that’s playing right in front of him.

He and Mike ride their bikes back to Will’s house afterward in the dark and slightly biting cold, laughing and exclaiming as they recall their favorite parts of the movie together. Mike walks Will all the way to his front door just to say goodnight. He leans in to give Will a hug that lingers longer than a Jonathan-hug but shorter than a Mom-hug, and somewhere in the back of Will’s tired mind, he feels like there’s significance in that. As Mike rides away on his bike, waving to Will until he has to round the corner, Will finds himself wishing that Mike weren’t so nice. Or maybe that he himself weren’t so foolish.

 

* * *

 

During April of their sophomore year, Will comes down with an unseasonably nasty bout of the flu in the week leading up to the spring sock hop dance, which is just as well to him. He’s even less interested in the goofy retro decorations and fake jukebox setup than he has been in any regular old dance in the past. Not to mention Lucas had told Will early the week prior that Mike had been asked to the dance by Melissa Myers from chemistry class. The thought of it still makes Will feel more than slightly uneasy, and he wishes he could blame the pang in his stomach on his illness, though he knows that’s not the case.

Regardless, Mike spends the week visiting Will after school, bringing him his missed homework assignments, homemade soup from his mom, and comic books that Will is too tired to read, but is thankful for anyway. Will protests against Mike staying, saying he'll catch the same thing Will has if he keeps showing up every day, but Mike just brushes it off, stays until the sun has set and Will is as caught up as he can be on what he’d missed in school that day. It’s around that time, when the sun has moved out of their sight and Will’s room is bathed in moonlight and the dim glow of a bedside lamp, that Mrs. Wheeler rings the Byers house with a polite reminder that Mike was supposed to be home thirty minutes ago.

“Sorry for making you late all week,” Will says on Thursday night as Mike gathers his books from their place on the end of Will’s bed, "I hope your mom hasn't been too angry with you."

Mike grins in that easy way he has and shrugs his shoulders.

“You’re worth it,” he says simply, waving over his shoulder as he heads toward the hallway.

Will’s face feels hot and feverish as he waves goodbye, but certainly that has to do with the fact that he’s fighting off the flu.

By Friday he’s feeling much better, but Joyce insists he stays home for the day anyway just to rest up. He spends the day bored and attempting to catch up on any assignments he hasn't managed to complete so far, but mostly he anxiously awaits Mike's visit to him, and is surprised that evening when Eleven shows up to bring him his missed school assignments instead.

“Mike’s walking Holly home today,” she explains at Will’s bewildered look, but Will wonders if it really has to do with the fact that he’s going to the dance that evening.

The thought makes him squirm nervously. He doesn’t ask, even though he thinks about it no less than twenty different times as Eleven takes the next half-hour to go over all of his assignments.

“I hope you’re back at school soon,” El says in her steady, quiet voice as she’s zipping up her jacket to leave, “We miss you. And Mike’s really mopey without you.”

Will doesn’t really know how to respond to that, so instead he coughs and blushes and waves El off with a mumbled _thank you_. He tries to put her words out of his mind and focus on his schoolwork instead, cringing to think about all the many pages of math word problems he’ll have to hand in to Mr. Berman on Monday. He decides to start with his history reading. He doesn’t even have history class with Mike, and he’s hoping that fact will help to keep his mind from pondering on why Mike is apparently _mopey_ without him at school. It’s only partially successful.

Halfway through his note taking on The Battle of the Bulge, Will hears a soft tapping at his bedroom window. It’s dark, but he can see Mike’s face clearly through the glass, smiling as he waves at Will. Will shakes his head but can’t keep the matching smile off of his face as he walks toward the window to open it and let Mike in.

“You could have knocked on the front door like a normal person,” he says as Mike tumbles through the open window, all long limbs and uncoordinated missteps.

Mike shrugs and says, “I wasn’t sure if your mom would be sleeping before a shift or something. I didn’t want to wake her.”

For the first time in hours, Will glances at the clock and realizes what time it is. _7:08 PM_ , the red digital numbers glow in the dim light on his bedside table. It’s Friday night and Mike was asked to go to a school dance, but instead he’s standing in the middle of Will’s small, slightly untidy bedroom and not in the school gymnasium with his arm wrapped around a nicely dressed girl.

“I thought you’d be on your way to the dance,” Will says, face pulling into a frown, “Didn’t Melissa ask you to go?”

It’s not like Will has anything against her. Will likes Melissa Myers. She’s short and smart and a little too loud, but she’s always been nice to him. Right now, though, her name is leaving a bitter taste on his tongue as he waits patiently for Mike’s response.

Mike simply gives Will an incredulous look, complete with an eyebrow raise.

“I was going to ask you, but you got sick,” he says with the kind of honesty that makes Will’s stomach ache in a way that has nothing to do with the flu.

Will takes a second to internally curse Mike for being such a good and loyal friend - only for a moment though, because Will is fairly certain he’s incapable of staying upset with Mike in any sort of significant way.

“You don’t have to take care of me, you know,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

He’s tired. He’s tired from being sick and tired of suppressing the urge to hold Mike’s hand and tired of Mike and his ridiculous, concerned eyes that always seem to be turned on Will.

Mike’s face grows indignant and he bounces up on his toes with restless energy.

“I want to,” he protests, and Will’s heart moves to sit somewhere high in his throat, “but I don’t understand what that has to do with asking you to the dance.”

A wave of exhaustion settles over Will. He has no idea how to explain to Mike that he can feel free to stop making up for the fact that Will was jokingly sad about not having a date to a dance two years ago, if only to save Will from the heartache of overthinking it all - that he doesn’t have to be so fiercely protective all the time or worry about whether Will is okay or not. He realizes, though, that this would be essentially like telling Mike to stop being himself, so instead he reminds himself that being annoyed with Mike for being a good friend is unfair to him, and sighs out, “there’s always next time, Mike.”

And half of him hopes that Mike will drop this at some point, while the other half - the half that so sweetly embraces the way Mike makes his pulse race and his brain conjure up silly thoughts about holding hands and breathing in close spaces and soft kisses on a warm summer day - kind of hopes that he’ll keep asking or pretending to ask or whatever it is he’s doing that makes Will feel special despite the voice of reason in his brain that tells him: _it’s not like that_.

Mike only smiles, settles in on Will’s bed with his stack of unread homework assignments, and agrees that there’s always next time.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, _next time_ isn’t anytime soon. Eleventh grade is a weird and frantic year for Will. It feels like a year of important milestones, like taking his driving test, studying for the SATs, and dealing with the weird but relatable anxiety that all of his friends are having about starting to think seriously about college.

And somewhere between all of that, Jennifer Hayes tells him that she likes girls while they’re locked in a closet together at someone’s sixteenth birthday party.

“Seven minutes in heaven is a stupid game,” Will says at the same time Jennifer blurts out, “I like girls!”

The words seem, impossibly, to echo in the cramped space, the winter jackets they’re pressed up against doing nothing to muffle the intensity of Jennifer’s voice. Once the shock in both of their eyes wears off, the rest of their six minutes and 14 seconds are spent commiserating over the reality of being _different_ in a small town in Indiana, and ends in a hug and a promise to keep each other’s secrets.

And so a few weeks later when Jennifer asks him if he’ll go to the homecoming dance with her to get her family off of her back about when she’s going to bring home a nice boy for them to meet, well, Will can’t exactly say no. Not after having shared such an important moment with her at a random classmate’s rowdy sweet sixteen party.

Will puts off telling Mike that he’s going to the dance with Jennifer. He’s not even sure why he does it. Part of him is saying that Mike will be upset, while the other part is reminding him that Mike will be happy, will feel _relieved_ that Will finally gets to go to a dance and experience what he’s been told is a quintessential teenage milestone.

“You haven’t told Mike,” Eleven says, her voice stopping just short of being accusatory, as she and Will say goodbye to Jennifer in front of the school on a Friday afternoon.

Will doesn’t ask her to clarify her statement; he knows what she’s referring to, and his veins thrum with nerves as he asks with a forced nonchalance, “why would Mike care?”

El doesn’t look angry or annoyed - she is rarely either one of those things around Will, and is never either one of those things _with_ Will - but her mouth crooks down into a half-frown and her eyes meet Will’s with a look that tells him she knows more than she’ll ever say out loud.

Will shrugs it off but resolves to finally tell Mike on a Saturday afternoon, exactly one week before homecoming. It’s maybe an awful way to tell him, waiting for the moment that Mike brings up the dance himself, but Will finds that the words tumble out of his mouth before he can find a better chance.

“I’m actually going to the dance with Jennifer,” he says, face going red as the words burst out of him before Mike can suggest they go together.

Mike’s brows draw down, his lips still parted around the words that Will forced him to stop short. Will tells himself repeatedly that it’s not hurt in Mike’s eyes that he’s seeing. It’s just the shadows formed by the setting sun playing tricks on the angles of Mike’s face. He’s not disappointed because there’s nothing about which to be disappointed. Mike can finally stop worrying about whether or not Will feels left out or sad for skipping another silly, school-sponsored event.

Still, something about the beat of silence before Mike draws in a sharp breath, something in the twist of Mike’s lips as he says, “oh, that’s great, Will,” makes Will’s pulse skip a beat or two against the skin of his neck as he wonders why it feels like Mike is _angry_ with him.

Will tries to explain that he’s really only going with Jennifer as a favor, that the thought of him and Jennifer being any sort of romantic item is laughable on every level, but the words get jumbled in his brain and he's silently panicking about the unreadable expression on Mike's face, so what comes out is, “I guess I finally have an actual date to a school dance, huh?”

It feels like the wrong thing to say as soon as the words have left his mouth. Will tries to backtrack, tries to remember what it is he was attempting to convey in the first place, but before he can do either one of those things, Mike is pulling on his coat, saying goodbye, and walking to his car with long, purposeful strides that Will would have to scramble to keep up with. Will is left sitting on his front porch with nothing but an aborted _goodbye_ on his tongue and the strange sensation that he’s done something very wrong. Will tries to put it out of his mind for the rest of the week, but something about the tightness in Mike’s smile when he looks at him makes it hard to forget.

Nevertheless, Will and Jennifer go to homecoming together; a hand-me-down suit and a sparkly green dress, awkwardly holding hands and posing for pictures in front of the Hayes’ award-winning rhododendron garden while her younger siblings coo over how cute they are together. Her parents love him and she thanks him about a million times that night. Will simply hugs her and tells her that he’s happy to help her out - because he is - and that he gets it - because he _does_.

He understands even more when he catches the sidelong glances that Jennifer gives to Max from across the room as they enter the dance. That sort of look in her eyes, the way Jennifer’s small hand tightens around Will’s as she seems to lose her balance just a bit when she catches Max's eye and Max waves, all newly-shorn red hair and scuffed, white Converse All Stars instead of heels - it all feels awfully familiar to him.

He squeezes Jennifer's hand with the type of reassuring confidence he wishes he had for himself, and they meet up with Dustin, Lucas, El and Max just as the first song of the night begins to play. Mike, Will realizes, is nowhere to be found.

“He’s working on his science fair project,” Max offers with an eyeroll and a shrug before Will can even ask the question.

Will acts like it doesn’t hurt him that Mike never even bothered to tell him that he didn’t plan on coming to the dance, and pointedly ignores the way Lucas and Eleven both glance at him before sharing a look between themselves. Instead he drops Jennifer’s hand and volunteers to go get drinks for everyone. He can’t shake the feeling that they’re all watching after him as he shuffles quickly across the room.

His awkwardness dissipates a bit when the DJ puts on a Billy Idol song soon after, and Jennifer grabs him by the hand once more.

“Let’s dance!” she suggests, smiling in a sympathetic sort of way that makes Will feel like his face must be an open book to everyone around him.

Still, he follows her out onto the dance floor and her bubbly mood forces him to drop his worries for the moment. The night actually ends up being a lot of fun; Will dances with Jennifer and watches Jennifer dance with Max and only really steps on anyone’s toes a couple of times. He takes pictures with his cheap Polaroid camera and is mostly able to ignore the way he feels like a part of him is missing when Mike’s not around.

It’s not really until he’s walking up to his front door at the end of the night, alone and humming quietly as he fumbles through his pocket to find his keys, that he feels himself missing the brush of Mike’s arm against his own, a comforting gesture when the night is dark and only a sliver of the moon is showing overhead.

He talks himself out of unburying his old supercom two-way from the back of his closet and trying to get a hold of Mike just to ask how his night has been. He’s not even sure those old things still work at this point.

Will throws his tie on the floor, falls into bed still dressed in his suit, and wonders if Mike made any decent progress on his science fair project. He wonders if Mike's fallen asleep at his desk with half of a model rocket assembled in front of him, wonders if his hair has fallen over his eyes, tickling against the top of his cheeks where his eyelashes cast a shadow against pale, freckled skin. Will's hand twitches with the urge to gently push the hair back from Mike's face like he's sitting right there next to him.

Sleep evades Will as passing clouds make shadows dance on every surface in his room, slowly fading as the nighttime sky stretches to its limits, inky blue melting into a muted, orange-pink dawn that awakens a nest of birds perched on a branch outside of his window. He contemplates staying in bed for the rest of the weekend.

On Monday, Mike doesn’t ask any of them how the dance was when he sees them, and Will doesn’t talk about it. He tries, but Mike always seems to have somewhere else to be whenever there's an attempt - someone else he has to speak to, something else to draw his attention, another subject that urgently needs to be addressed. Will takes the hint before long.

Something shifts between them, then; a sort of glacial divide that happens slowly enough that by the time they’re hardly talking at all, it feels strangely inevitable. It’s starts small - a hairline fracture growing gradually into a gaping chasm; Mike stops asking him to dances, or even bringing up the school dances at all. No more suggestions that they should go together, no more nudging Will’s arm and saying, “you could always go with me.” The winter ball passes, the sadie hawkins dance, their junior prom. Mike doesn’t ask him to any of the silly events. Where he used to place a hand on Will’s shoulder, he instead puts his arm down by his side. Where it used to be hugs and brushing hands as they walked back to Mike’s car from the movie theater together, now it’s aborted gestures and awkward, stilted laughs that fall just short of being authentic.

Will pretends the whole thing about the school dances doesn't bother him because it _shouldn't_. He’s got a million other things occurring throughout the year, and dances are barely a blip on his radar among everything else. But still, he can’t stop himself from missing it. The way that Mike’s eyes would go all soft and smiley before he asked, the way he was so casual about it, and the way he always agreed to their alternate plans instead when Will would find some way to brush off the question. It felt like some sort of constant - the kind of steadfast constant that Will is costively losing his grip on when it comes to Mike.

It doesn’t happen all at once, but it happens. Through days of studying for big tests and practicing driving and trying to win the blue ribbon at the state science fair for bragging rights but also for college application purposes - he and Mike are rarely alone together, and the easy friendship they’ve shared for years doesn’t seem so easy anymore. Will tells himself it’s the stress of the school year, the stress of figuring out the rest of their lives when they’re still so young that makes Mike more withdrawn these days. The thought that he and Mike are naturally drifting apart makes something in him panic.

Mostly, Will feels impossibly like he _misses_ Mike, which is silly, after all, he and Mike still spend plenty of time together. It’s just that usually they’re in school, or someone else is there with them. And he doesn’t ask Will to a single, stupid dance. Eleventh grade is weird and frantic and lonely, and Will finds himself feeling like he’s mourning something that is tauntingly within inches of his grasp, if only he could figure out how he'd lost it in the first place.

Lucas tries his hardest to pry it out of them both (“why are you acting weird?” he’ll ask them in turns), and both of them find a way to avoid answering the question. Eleven looks at Will with the kind of warmth and understanding that makes Will feel uncomfortably like she is reading his thoughts. Dustin, for his part, tries his best to act like everything's normal but even he ends up rolling his eyes and sighing a couple of times as Mike and Will deliberately choose to sit on complete opposite ends of the lunch table.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Dustin says one day as Mike squishes in beside Lucas despite the larger, empty spot that’s open next to Will.

Neither Mike nor Will says anything. Dustin just sighs and Lucas doesn’t even bother to hide the way he’s shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

It’s a slow year for Will. The seasons drag by, slow as honey but never so sweet, and he realizes as the summer settles with its thick, humid buzz over Hawkins once more, Mike isn’t there to ride around the town with him on their bikes and buy too much candy, or sit on the branches of the sturdy old trees in the woods surrounding his house, eating popsicles until their mouths are stained red and blue (and purple when they run out of all the good flavors).

_It’s okay_ , he tells himself. They’re getting too old for things like that, and it would be silly to expect it to happen when they’re 17 and on their way to graduating high school. Instead, he gets a job and saves money and sees Mike and Dustin and Lucas on weekends for their campaigns.

Mike always seems to hesitate with him as they say goodbye at the end of the night. He looks at Will like there are entire books’ worth of questions he’d like to ask. Instead, he folds his arms around himself and says, “good night, Will,” with a little wrinkle of consternation settling just between his brows. And Will smiles like he knows he should, says, “good night, Mike,” and walks to his car with slow, measured steps. He always hopes when he glances back, Mike will be standing there, still looking at him, but he’s always gone back inside by the time Will is brave enough to turn his eyes toward the front door again.

 

* * *

 

Will has a panic attack, the first in nearly a year and a half, just as the first tendrils of autumn, crisp and cool and rusty orange-red against a gray-blue backdrop, begin to sneak through summer’s sticky haze at the beginning of his senior year. It’s not entirely unexpected; something about the seasons changing from warm to cold has set him on edge since his return from the upside down, though that doesn’t make it any less awful.

He doesn’t mean to run into Mike in his rush to get outside of the school, outside of the walls that all feel like they’re closing in on him. He just wants to make it to the old utility building just beyond the soccer field, to the only quiet place he knows that’s not too far off school grounds. But as he dashes through the school hallways, he all but crashes directly into Mike, nearly knocking the both of them to the ground. Their items scatter unceremoniously across the hallway floor and it causes enough commotion that their fellow classmates start staring. Will's vision goes blurry around the edges, black pinpoints invading his periphery.

“S-sorry,” Will stutters out, gathering his fallen items quickly and scrambling toward the doors before Mike can even formulate a response. He vaguely registers that Mike is calling his name somewhere behind him but it sounds like the echo of an echo and he can’t stop his legs from propelling him forward.

It’s only when he sinks down to sit against the cool brick of the old building, hands shaking and breath coming in ragged, heaving gasps, that he notices Mike has followed him out of the school. He tries to speak, to tell Mike that he’ll be fine, it’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with a hundred times before, but his voice chokes up in his throat. He closes his eyes and feels fear, unwarranted and unwanted, prick at the back of his neck, goosebumps sliding down his spine and making him shiver even in the midday heat.

“Breathe, Will,” he hears Mike saying from beside him.

His voice sounds like it’s coming through a tunnel that’s miles and miles away, but the familiarity of it brings some small comfort to Will. If his brain weren’t busy terrorizing him, he would probably remember all the nights he’d spent curled up on his bedroom floor when he was 13, calling Mike over their supercoms and listening to him talk Will through the panic attacks that used to happen almost daily.

He would remember the times that Mike had sneaked over at 2:00 in the morning just to lie on Will’s bed with him and stay awake until Will’s breathing was heavy and slow with the rhythm of sleep, sneaking back out just as the dawn approached the portrait-like horizon outside of Will’s window.

Instead, he focuses on remembering how to breathe (in through the nose, out through the mouth, deep, steady, even) and concentrates on the warmth of the sun overhead and the sounds of birds chirruping in the nearby trees. His heart slows itself in increments.

When he opens his eyes again, Mike is sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of him and Will has a jacket draped around his shoulders that he certainly wasn’t wearing earlier.

“Is this your jacket?”

His voice cracks on the second syllable of _jacket_ but it’s mostly steady.

Mike nods and says, “you were shivering,” like he didn’t even think twice about it.

Will swallows thickly.

“You didn’t have to stay,” he says. He’s keenly aware that this is the longest that he and Mike have been alone together in quite a while. Probably since the weekend before the stupid homecoming dance last year.

Mike’s lips are twisted into a frown, eyes never quite meeting Will’s despite the fact that there’s nowhere of particular interest to look.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he replies, “and to warn you that Mr. Holloway saw us leaving the school in the middle of the day, so we may or may not get detention.”

Will laughs humorlessly and buries his head in his knees for just a second, wrapping Mike’s jacket tighter around his shoulders and hating the way it smells just like him - the clean, sharp hint of soap mixed with the plasticky scent of old action figures and the strawberry shampoo that Mike used to claim he only used because Nancy left it in the shower.

“How much class time did we miss?” Will asks eventually, standing up on shaky legs.

Mike stands up as well, looks down at his watch.

“Only 15 minutes of fourth period,” he says.

Will sighs.

“I guess we should get back.”

Mike nods his agreement.

“Yeah,” he says, “we should.”

Neither of them moves, staring at one another like they’re each waiting for the other to say something else. Mike looks for all the world like he wants to wrap Will in a hug, just like he used to after the nightmares and panic attacks plagued him. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans instead.

The nearby scuffling of a bird in a tree breaks the silence of the moment and they both look away from one another guiltily, as if caught doing something they weren't supposed to be doing. As they walk back toward the school in silence, Mike’s arm gently knocks against Will’s and Will finds himself hoping that maybe things between them will return to normal after this. Maybe this was a reminder of the _them_ they used to be, and conversation between them will be less awkward. Maybe Mike will reach out and grasp Will’s wrist before they walk back in through the rusted double doors, maybe they’ll shift back into one another’s orbits like nothing ever changed at all.

But Mike walks to his own class with nothing more than a single glance back toward Will, and Will lingers in the hallway, shrugs Mike’s jacket off of his shoulders where it clings to him like some sort of specter of the past he so clearly should move on from. He hands the jacket to Lucas before lunch, asking him to return it to Mike. Lucas looks like he wants to protest but he grits his teeth and says _fine_ , instead.

Nothing changes except Will’s heart grows just a bit heavier in his chest.

His mom asks him later that week why she hasn’t seen Mike around in a while, and Will wants to laugh or cry or both.

“Didn’t you tell me once that sometimes growing up means growing apart?” he asks in lieu of an answer.

Joyce looks thoughtful for a moment, like she wants to ask a question that she knows Will won’t want to answer.

“I suppose I did,” she replies, ruffling Will’s hair as she stands up from the dinner table.

Will can see the question in her eyes - _how do you grow apart from someone who was attached to you by the hip only last year?_ He’s glad she doesn’t ask, because Will spends an inordinate amount of time pondering that very same thing himself.

 

* * *

 

The worst blizzard that Indiana has seen in ten years happens on a Tuesday evening in January when Will is just on the cusp of 18 years old. It’s the last half of his senior year of high school and things are normal. Mostly normal. Mike still hasn’t asked Will to a dance since they were 15, and Will still spends a lot of his time avoiding being alone with Mike to side-step their awkwardness, but mostly they’re okay. They're friends, at least, of a sort.

Will sits cross-legged on the floor, holed up in Mike’s basement while working on a model of the planet Mars (including its two moons that swivel just slightly unsteadily around it, thanks to an ingenious idea from Lucas that included PVC piping and the gears from an old clock). It’s partially for school and partially for fun - they all know that a to-scale model isn’t required of the project, but who could ever do a project about something related to the solar system _without_ taking the time to put together a visual?

The inevitable taunts of “teacher’s pet” be damned, Will is invested in demonstrating his love for space via hand-made, papier-mâché replicas of his second favorite planet and its moons. Dustin and Lucas headed home a couple of hours ago, leaving Will to the more artistic portions of the project. Will wanted to ask them to stay, but he’s not sure how to effectively communicate, _I still do not know how to be alone with Mike_ , without sounding like a terrible friend about it all.

So instead he is hard at work by himself, concentrating on painting Deimos, finding the right blend of colors to emphasize its dips and craters when Mike comes bounding down the basement stairs like an entire stampede entrapped in a single teenage boy, excitement in his eyes and a bounce in his step.

“It’s snowing!” Mike says excitedly, hands coming together to clap like he’s a small child who’s only just seen snow for the first time. Will finds some small part of himself hoping that this part of Mike - this unbridled enthusiasm, this childish glee for what others might consider to be inane - never leaves him. Even if things between them are weird, Will never tires of Mike’s honest enthusiasm for small things.

“Snowing?” Will repeats, quickly looking down at his watch. 7:15 PM. He’s already nearing the time that he told his mom he would be home.

Mike nods, head bobbing and dark hair shaking like a curtain around his ears.

“A lot,” he clarifies, “Your car is already sort of buried in the driveway.”

He hesitates for a second before adding, “You can stay here, if you want.”

“Oh,” is Will’s reply, because he’s having trouble remembering the last time he stayed over at Mike’s house without any of the other boys there along with them. He’s honestly a bit nervous over the thought of it.

Mike’s features pull into a frown and Will fights the urge to reach out and smooth the lines between his brows with shaking fingers. It’s preposterous that his muscle memory still insists on reminding him of the easy affection he and Mike used to share, like an impulse he can’t unwrite from some conditioned neurological pathway in his brain.

He shakes his head and balls his hands into fists, pressing hard until his blunt nails create little half-moons in the skin of his palm. And then he presses harder.

“I mean, you don’t have to,” Mike amends, voice softer than it was just a moment ago, “I don’t really think you should drive in the snow, but if you want to...”

“No!” Will cuts Mike off, hating to hear the disappointment in his voice. For all the ways that things have changed between them, Mike can’t seem to entirely tamp down the part of him that cares so deeply about keeping Will safe. It’s endearing and frustrating and it makes Will want to do something ridiculous like kiss Mike in his cold basement on a snowy Tuesday evening.

Instead, he swallows hard and says, “of course I’ll stay,” with a shaky smile.

Mike smiles back, just as shaky, and his arms twitch at his sides like he wants to give Will a hug, but he doesn’t. Will swallows back his disappointment, hates how they've both become so expert at ignoring the giant, invisible wall they've built between themselves that it's almost as if they're pretending it doesn't exist at all.

The next few hours are spent finishing up their project and watching the snow fall fast and unrelenting in the night sky from the safety of the Wheeler’s cozy, warm kitchen. Will calls his mom to let her know he’s staying at the Wheeler house so she doesn’t have to worry.

“Are you going to be okay?” Joyce asks softly before they hang up. Will knows she’s not referring to the intermittent power outages that have been predicted around the area, or even the potential nightmares that could occur all the more easily with Will sleeping somewhere aside from his own bed.

“I’ll be fine, mom,” he says, but he’s hardly convincing even to his own ears. She doesn’t fight him on it.

After their project is complete, they watch TV in the Wheeler's living room, ignoring the way the picture comes in all fuzzy because of the weather. Will doesn’t say much because Mike doesn’t say much, but there are words hanging in the air between them like icicles stuck stubbornly in the bitter cold of the January snow. Being alone with Mike _hurts_ , Will realizes as the silence begins to make his ears ring.

When it comes time to go to bed, Will wants desperately to ask Mike to stay with him in the basement. He knows it might be weird but he still doesn’t do so well in the dark even now, especially when sleeping in a house that’s not his own. Mike’s parents replaced his bunk bed some time last year so he can’t really ask to sleep up in Mike’s room - not that he thinks that would be any less awkward.

He feels a sigh of relief form in his chest as Mike hauls two sleeping bags out of the closet, arranging them on the floor like there was never even a question that he’d let Will stay in the dark of the basement by himself. Will’s heart flutters and he regrets any time he’d ever wished Mike were a less-good person.

The two of them stretch out on the sleeping bags as best they can, legs knocking into the table and the laundry basket and into one another.

“I think we used to fit a little better,” Will remarks as his foot kicks against Mike’s shin for the third time.

He means it as a joke, a lighthearted comment, but Mike just looks sad as he pulls his blanket up around his shoulders and says, “good night, Will.”

Will doesn’t say anything.

He spends the next hour and a half staring at the patterns of shadows along the basement wall, counting the old action figures lined up on the table and wondering when all of it started to feel so foreign to him.

“Will?” Mike’s voice cuts through the silence of the basement in a low, questioning tone.

Will startles, rolling over on his sleeping bag to face Mike instead of the wall. Mike is looking right at him with dark, earnest eyes and Will wonders if he’s been awake this whole time as well.

“Can’t sleep either?” Will replies, voice coming out in a whisper despite the fact that they’re in the basement and the chances of anyone else in the house hearing them this late are slim to none.

Mike shakes his head. Will gives him a sympathetic smile and sighs.

“I’m going to go for a walk,” Mike says after a beat, “do you want to come with me?”

Will can’t help the giggle that falls from his lips into the empty air between them. It’s 1:17 AM and there’s probably nearly two feet of snow on the ground already and this is the first time he’s been alone with Mike in any significant way for such a long time. He laughs because it all feels so absurd that he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Sure,” he says after composing himself, “let’s go for a walk.”

Will regrets that they have to mess up the pristine, untouched blanket that’s laid out before them like a vast, calm white sea, but Mike doesn't seem to have a second thought about it as he marches awkwardly through the fluffy white precipitation. It’s difficult to keep up with Mike - he’s got a good four inches of height over Will at this point, plus the snow is deep enough that it impedes his attempts at walking. The snowfall has slowed down to flurries that swirl playfully around their heads and land in Will’s eyelashes, blurring his vision just a bit.

Mike stops beneath the branches of one of the old, tall trees that sits at the edge of his back yard and looks up at the sky with tired eyes to watch the snow fall. His pale face is illuminated by the light of the waxen moon, cheeks flushed red with the bite of the icy air, his smattering of freckles standing out on the slant of his nose even in the depths of winter. Will’s heart is heavy with how badly he misses his best friend.

Not for the first time since he’s met Mike Wheeler, Will wonders if entire galaxies can be fit into human beings. If perhaps the freckles marking the skin of Mike’s cheeks are truly little stars that line up in random formation to create constellations that are all of Will’s favorite shapes, despite the distance that feels palpable between them.

It’s a silly thought, but in his head he can hear Carl Sagan’s voice on repeat - _we’re made of star stuff_. It echoes in his ears, cold and numb at the tips, as he watches Mike close his eyes, tilt his head back, and catch the fat, slowly falling snowflakes on the tip of his tongue. If that’s true, he thinks, Mike just might be Will’s favorite star. All of his parts constructed together by some random happenstance in the universe, making nearly six feet of uncoordinated, bright-eyed teenaged boy that happens to exist at the same time as Will and all of the messy, broken little stars that make up his own ungainly body.

It’s the kind of thought that makes his chest ache, makes his throat burn with all the words he’s swallowed back down over the years.

_I miss you_ , he nearly exclaims, but how can he say I miss you to someone who exists in his life nearly every day? What he really means to say is, _I miss us_. What he really means to say is, _I miss the way you used to look at me, even if I’ll never be brave enough to ask if it meant what I want it to mean_.

What he says is, “why did you stop asking me to go to dances with you?”

The words rush out of him like a geyser before he even has a chance to tamp them down. His voice is too loud and it echoes through the night air, making his ears ring and staining his cheeks pink. He wishes he could close his mouth and erase the question from existence, because it’s too obvious - all the unspoken words threaded into it, knowing it really has nothing to do with any stupid school dance.

Mike looks startled before he inhales deeply and sighs, breath curling like a cloud of smoke from between his lips.

“Jennifer Hayes,” he says after a moment. And then: “I thought that was your way of telling me you were sick of me.”

Will frowns.

“Jennifer and I...it’s not like that,” he says, and then blushes because somehow it feels like he’s implying that he and Mike are _like that_.

“She needed a friend to take her to homecoming,” Will continues, “and I couldn’t get sick of you, Mike. That’s crazy. I - I miss you asking me to the stupid school dances. I miss _you_.”

And, oh, he’s said it. His voice is still too loud and the night is still too quiet but he’s _said it_.

Will’s face is bright red and his pulse is thundering beneath his skin as he watches Mike’s face cycle through more emotions than Will can track, but none of them seem bad. He finally settles on something halfway between happy and exhausted and Will feels like he can relate, wonders if his own expression is matching Mike’s.

The silence between them is still overwhelming as Mike seems to start a sentence, then stop it before it ever even leaves his mouth, about 10 different times.

“Let’s get back inside,” he says decisively, and Will is nervous about what that means until Mike places a tentative arm around his shoulder and seems to relax just a bit as Will presses in closer.

It’s the first time he’s done that in such a terribly long time, and walking side-by-side with Mike feels remarkably like coming home. Will feels a warmth spread through the weight of his bones despite the fact that they’ve been standing outside in below-freezing temperatures for the past 20 minutes.

When they lie back down on their sleeping bags, Mike hesitates and searches Will’s face for something Will can’t place. He must find the answer somewhere in the soft, bright set of Will’s eyes, or maybe in the way his lips are quirked into a smile that won’t seem to go away, because he curls up close to Will and presses his cold fingers against the palm of Will’s hand, intertwining their fingers together like a key sliding into a lock.

“We still fit,” Mike whispers reassuringly and Will blushes and laughs, covers his face with his free hand and says softly, breathlessly, “yeah, we do.”

Will falls asleep first, Mike’s warm breath tickling against his ear like a steady, quiet whisper reminding Will: _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here_.

 

* * *

 

Things change, after that. Or rather, they go back to how they used to be in increments. Another great tectonic shift that slowly closes the divide they’ve opted to ignore for over a year.

Mike is less quiet around Will at first, more likely to suggest they hang out together, just the two of them. Then he’s quicker to place an arm around his shoulder and hug him for some inane reason, like getting 100% on a history test that they’d been studying for together. After that, they spend a lot of time talking vaguely about the future and college and moving out, but they always seem to stop the conversation short of actually making any plans together.

Will tries not to worry about it too much because he’s mostly just happy to have his best friend back. He has _Mike_ back - Mike, with his intelligent, dark eyes and his unending loyalty and his stubborn streak a mile wide. It’s like stepping into shelter after having been out in a grueling rainstorm that wore Will down to the bone.

Mike asks him to their senior prom two days before the date of the dance, the Thursday that they both receive their acceptance letters to Northwestern University. His eyes are bright and wild as he leans forward over the lunch table before any of their friends have arrived to sit with them, and says, “let’s go to prom together.”

And maybe he means it _as friends_. Maybe he’ll only ever mean it as friends, and the thought of finding out either way makes Will nervous, but for the first time in five years - five years of Mike suggesting they go to a dance together and Will finding some way to talk around it - Will stops fighting the thing inside of him that’s screaming at him to just say _yes_ , and he says, “yeah, okay. Let’s go to prom together, Michael Wheeler.”

They’re both smiling at one another like idiots when Dustin, Lucas, and Eleven arrive and share a look between themselves, but Will can’t even be bothered to care about that. He’s going to his senior prom with Mike Wheeler and his heart is fluttering in his chest, a moth’s wings beating like the chant of a drum against his rib cage.

 

* * *

 

The night of the prom, Will spends an inordinate amount of time fussing with his hair and desperately wishing that he owned more than one suit even though he thinks (hopes) he cleans up pretty well in the one he owns.

He picks Eleven up on the way to Mike’s house to drop her off at Max’s for whatever it is that girls get up to before prom (knowing them, probably ill-advised pre-prom skateboarding and then some futile attempts to patch up their skinned knees while curling their hair).

“You look nervous,” El says just as Will pulls into Max’s driveway. Will laughs out loud.

“It’s just a stupid school dance,” he says in lieu of answering, because he _is_ nervous. His hands are shaking on the steering wheel and he notices that his tie is crooked around his throat despite his multiple attempts at tying it.

“I don’t know,” El says with a grin, as she grabs the garment bag with her dress in it and hops out of the car, “it all sort of sounds like a date to me.”

Will makes a face at her as she waves him off but he can’t get her words off of his mind. He takes the long way to Mike’s house just for the extra minute and a half to calm his breathing, stop the unanswered questions from plaguing his mind.

When he arrives at the Wheeler’s house, Karen makes a remark about how handsome he looks, straightens his tie with a practiced hand, and then sends him upstairs to Mike’s room.

“He’s been up there for hours now,” she says with a sigh and a shake of her head, “maybe you can remind him that he’s got somewhere to be.”

Will knocks on the bedroom door, waiting for Mike’s response before opening it. He’s greeted with the scene of Mike messing idly with his hair in front of the small mirror hanging over his desk.

Will is a little bit breathless when he sees him. It’s Mike, it’s definitely Mike - all long limbs and moppish hair and freckled cheeks that go just the lightest shade of pink as Will steps into the room - but there’s something just slightly different about all six feet of him dressed in a suit, complete with a jacket and a blue and green striped tie.

“You look, um…,” he starts, and doesn’t finish, because the only word his brain seems to know right now is _Mike_.

Mike looks back at him with soft eyes and an uncharacteristically shy smile.

“Yeah,” he agrees to Will’s nonsense statement, “you, too.”

Will blushes and clears his throat.

“We should probably go downstairs and let your mom take some pictures before we have to leave,” he says.

Mike pulls a face like he’s already dreading the flashbulb that’s going to disorient their eyes for the next half-hour. Will laughs.

“Come on,” he says, “might as well get it over with.”

Mrs. Wheeler doesn’t take _too_ many pictures, though Mike still finds it in him to say, “okay, mom, that’s enough!” about ten different times as Will stands where Karen has posed him in front of the mantle and stifles a giggle into his hand.

On the drive over to the civic center, Mike nudges Will’s shoulder and says, “I’m glad you decided to come with me.”

Will smiles, watching through the passenger’s side window as the streetlights illuminate the trees planted along the roadside, each one a spotlight that grows and fades faster than Will can count them.

“Me too,” he agrees quietly.

He can feel Mike’s smile from the opposite side of the car.

 

* * *

 

Prom is loud and dark and half the teenagers around them are drunk off of cheap beer that they chugged in their limos on the ride here, but it’s still more fun than Will has had in a long time. He dances beside all of his friends (though, honestly, Lucas and Dustin are really the only ones in their little circle that happen to have any real semblance of rhythm), gets his picture taken in front of an awkward, confetti-painted backdrop, and eats hors d'oeuvres that try to look fancy but really are probably from the local deli mart down the street.

It’s all winding down a bit too quickly, and as the last slow song of the night comes on, Will finds himself hesitating at the edge of the dance floor with Mike right by his side. He’s managed to avoid being anywhere nearby when the DJ has played ballads thus far, avoiding Mike’s eyes and finding some excuse to be at the exact opposite end of the room than everybody else. But now he’s run out of places he needs to pretend to be and instead he’s awkwardly watching all of his friends and their dates sway too-close on the dance floor while he fidgets with the buttons on his shirt cuffs and wonders what Mike is thinking.

He’s a bit startled as Mike’s hand finds his shoulder, a warm weight that Will can’t help but lean into. Mike is looking at Will with eyes that are too honest and too kind and make Will’s heart feel too big for his body.

“We should dance,” Mike says. His voice is affectionate and warm. It makes Will’s knees weak.

“We should?” he asks softly.

Mike nods his head and holds his hand out toward Will, waiting for him to take it. It’s awkward at first, situating themselves with one another, trying to figure out whose arms go where and how not to step on each other’s feet, but they laugh their way through it until they get it right.

“This song is kind of morbid,” Mike comments, his breath brushing against Will’s ear.

Somewhere in the background, Morrissey’s voice sings melancholically about [double-decker buses and dying in a heavenly way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPZMhFa84U).

Will laughs.

“I like this song,” he says, mock-offended.

Mike smiles and Will can feel it against his cheek.

“I know,” he responds, “it’s your favorite Smiths song.”

Something about the reminder of just how well Mike knows him makes Will feel slightly dizzy, his feet going a bit uncoordinated. He accidentally missteps, catching the toe of Mike’s shoe beneath his own.

“Sorry,” he apologizes immediately, taking a step back and looking up at Mike’s face - boyish and angular, soft and pretty with eyes that are glimmering darkly in the dim but colorful lights that play across his pale, freckled skin. Will reminds himself to breathe.

Mike is looking right at him and there’s something - something about the look in his eyes, something about the low hum of the music in the air around them, something about the last ten years of Will’s life being spent with Mike Wheeler standing by his side with open arms and a clever tongue and a head full of grand ideas - that makes Will stand up on his tiptoes and angle himself up toward Mike like no one else exists around them.

Mike says, “Will,” just loud enough to hear over the sound of the music. Will thinks he’s going to say something else - to ask a question, to make a joke - but he stops there, only saying Will’s name and holding his hands tightly where they sit around Will’s waist.

“Mike,” Will replies, voice catching and eyes fluttering closed before he can stop it from happening.

He can feel Mike’s breath against his skin as he leans in closer, can hear the way he says Will’s name one more time, like a question and an answer all in one syllable, and it feels like the culmination of everything he’s ever dreamt, ever wished for, is happening in this very moment. Like the answer to every question Will has been afraid to ask is sitting an inch in front of him, hidden somewhere in the shape of Mike’s lips.

He moves in closer still, Mike’s heart an unsteady rhythm Will can feel where his hands are placed up around his shoulders. Half-formed, fragile, nervous little words form and unform in his mind, knock on the back of his teeth with an urgency to be let out.

The question sits like lead on the tip of his tongue: _Is this really a date?_ , he starts to ask, but he only gets as far as “is this” when abruptly, he finds that the lights above their heads turn back up, the song fades to buzzing silence in his ears, and the DJ is announcing to a room full of disappointed groans that the dance is over.

Will stumbles backward in a stupor, blinking rapidly and trying to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights that are unpleasantly flooding the space around him.

“...and remember to drive safely, kids!” the DJ says into his microphone, making Will wince with the sudden volume of his voice.

Mike is looking at Will with wide, surprised eyes, and he sees Jennifer and Max looking at them with raised eyebrows and quizzical stares over Mike’s shoulder. Will can feel his face burning red, embarrassment making the blood rush through his ears and deafening him to everything Mike is saying even as he stands right in front of him.

“We should go,” Will says, pulling his arm from Mike’s grasp and heading toward the exit with the rest of the crowd. He sidesteps all of his friends and their curious glances, replaying the last few minutes in his mind with a racing heart.

He can hear Mike rushing to keep up with him but Will doesn’t slow down until he gets all the way to Mike’s car.

“Are you okay?” Mike asks as he unlocks the doors.

“Yeah,” Will says with a soft, insecure smile, slipping into the passenger’s seat and buckling himself in, “I’m fine.”

He glances at Mike as he enters the car as well, tired eyes and a friendly smile and arms that reach over the center console to give Will a hug that lasts for just a second. The entire drive back to Will’s house, he feels like the air between them is empty, like it’s wanting for words that he doesn’t know how to say even after all this time.

He can still feel the question sitting like a weight in the pit of his stomach, years’ worth of unspoken words flitting through his brain. They bubble up at the back of his throat like his heart is overflowing, spilling into his mouth, flooding it with words that taste warm and sweet over the bed of his tongue ( _I like you, I adore you, I’m yours_ ). Will bites his lip until he tastes iron instead.

Mike makes the turn to pull into the Byers driveway and Will wants to ask him to just keep driving. If he doesn’t stop, if he never drops Will off at home, maybe it means that Will doesn’t have to let go of this night. If he drives past Will’s house, drives his hand-me-down station wagon past the Hawkins city limits, then maybe it means Will can pretend that he’s not afraid of whatever it is that exists between them, or that he wishes exists between them, or some terrifying combination of both of those things.

Mike doesn’t keep driving, though, and they pull to a stop in front of Will’s house before long. He walks Will to the front door just like he always does, just like he always will. Their hands brush and Mike links his pinky finger around Will’s own without any preamble - just for a second, just for long enough that his heart skips a beat or two in his chest.

“Well,” Will says as they linger on his front porch, not quite ready to say goodbye. The dim, flickering light bulb dances in his eyes and makes it hard to tell where exactly Mike is looking.

“Well,” Mike repeats with a smile, sounding tired but pleasant.

The night is silent around them, save for a few crickets that chirp restlessly in the thick nighttime humidity. Mike is looking at Will like he’s waiting for him to say something important. Will draws in a breath and opens his mouth.

“I guess this was the last time you’ll ever have to ask me to a school dance.”

It’s not what he means to say but it’s what comes out anyway, and he winces at the self-deprecation in his own voice. He laughs awkwardly, nerves eating at his stomach while he waits for Mike’s response and, senselessly, feels like he’s choking back tears.

Mike’s hand finds his shoulder and he says Will’s name until Will looks up from the ground, eyes still trying to avoid Mike’s though it’s nearly impossible not to look at his stupidly charming face.

“Did you think this was some kind of joke all this time?” Mike asks with the kind of ferocity that tells Will it’s the exact opposite of a joke, and he’s not sure which of those two things scares him more.

“I - I don’t know,” Will stutters out, "I guess I didn't think it was a joke. Just...just _not serious_."

His heart is pounding and he desperately wants to sprint the opposite direction, but also desperately wants to run directly into Mike’s arms. Instead, he stands in place and shuffles his feet while he awaits Mike's response, just for something to do.

Will jumps a little at Mike’s laugh because he doesn’t know exactly what kind of reaction he’s expecting, but it’s not that.

“And here I was, thinking I was being obvious for the past five years!” Mike says with a shake of his head and a squeeze of Will’s shoulder.

Will blushes deeply - partly from embarrassment, partly from the implication of Mike’s words.

“I thought you were just being a good friend,” he manages to get out and Mike actually snorts on his laugh this time.

“I don’t know if _friends_ go on as many dates as we have.”

Will’s palms are sweating and his heart is beating so fast he’s positive Mike can see the way his pulse is pounding above the collar of his shirt.

“Dates?”

Mike looks at him like he can’t believe the words that have come out of his mouth.

“ _Dates_ ,” Mike repeats slowly with a nod, “Like, every time we didn’t go to a dance and stayed in to watch a movie instead. Or went to the comic shop. Or rode our bikes to the lake together.”

Will feels himself grow impossibly redder as Mike says good-naturedly, “and Dustin likes to call _me_ the oblivious one.”

Will covers his eyes with one hand and groans out in embarrassment, wondering how much time he’s wasted over the years of his life trying to convince himself that he was reading too much into every little thing that Mike did for him. Every time he’d held his hand, every nice word, every invitation to go to a dance together - it had all meant something. It had all meant _everything_.

“So I guess that means you were never asking me out of obligation,” Will says, peeking out from between his fingers like it’ll somehow mask the redness of his face.

"I'm not sure how I could have been any more conspicuous about it, Byers!" Mike laughs out, toothy grin making Will smile in return.

"I guess I needed you to spell it out for me," Will laughs at himself, hand still covering his burning face.

Mike's demeanor changes suddenly; laughter replaced with soft, sincere eyes and a smile that feels special, private, as he gently grasps Will’s hand in his own and moves it away from his eyes, lowering their arms but keeping their fingers intertwined.

“I asked you because I want to be with you,” he says, pressing his forehead against Will’s with infinite tenderness.

“Okay?” he whispers after a moment of Will’s silence, his breath rushing warmly against Will’s lips.

Will swallows harshly and nods.

“Okay,” he starts to say, but Mike leans in those last two inches and traps the word between their lips before it can make it into the air between them.

He leans in and he kisses Will like thunder calling in a summer storm, like flowers blooming brightly from the soil after the last frost of winter, like a beginning and an end, like the growth of something that planted itself between the two of them ages ago, when the callow grasp of youth was still too strong to place it quite yet.

Will giggles pleasantly against Mike’s lips because the happiness that’s welled up within him really knows no other way out except to fill the air between them with laughter that rings charmingly, echoing through ears flushed red with the late spring heat and teenaged apprehension.

Mike laughs too, a noise that blossoms from his heart and tastes sweet against Will’s lips as he catches the sound against them.

“I _adore_  you, Will Byers,” Mike says as they part with a delighted little sigh.

Will commits the words to memory like a prayer looping through his head in an almost dizzying fashion - words that, at long last, give a name to the warmth in his chest with roots that tangle pleasantly around his rib cage.

Will presses his face into the skin of Mike’s neck and breathes in deeply. His heart opens, a flower in full bloom under the pale moonlight shining down from the star-speckled, velvet dark above them.

“I adore _you_ , Mike Wheeler,” Will whispers back, and Mike closes his eyes and grins like he’s never heard anything sweeter.


End file.
